Time Crisis
by Checkerboards
Summary: The distinction between past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.' Unfortunately for Gotham, Einstein was all too right.
1. Let's Do The Time Warp Again

The dictionary states that Time is "the general idea, relation, or fact of continuous or successive existence". And in most places, this would be a completely accurate description. But, like most things, in Gotham City the definition of Time becomes somewhat skewed.

Continuous existence? What about Time travel? If Time is running in a straight line, and someone finds a way to skip backward, can Time really be said to be a line anymore? What if Time is a line to some, and a plane to others, and a cube to yet another group? In the end, wouldn't it be simpler to just throw your hands up, declare that Time is a magazine, and go fishing?

Consider the fistfight that is taking place in a back alley deep in downtown Gotham. In many ways, it is a very typical example of the kind of justice that gets delivered by Bats. Basically, it involves a lot of very fancy martial arts moves that invariably end by connecting hard with bits of vulnerable criminal anatomy.

There is something else about this fight, though...something that just isn't right. It could be the alley, which is somewhat filthier than usual. It could be the strangely outdated Batsuit wrapped around the Batman. Perhaps, though, it is the pale, skinny little freckled criminal, who is wearing an eye-searingly bright yellow caftan paired with an enormously floppy red half-afro, which is currently doing double duty as a handhold for the Bat.

"Hey, man," the thug was protesting, "I didn't take no Bug! You crazy, man?" In answer, Batman grabbed the man by the loose collar of the caftan and slammed him up against the wall. Clearly the answer was yes. "Okay, now, be cool, be cool," the man stammered, bare feet kicking in empty air. "I took the Bug, yeah, but I didn't touch that cat in the backseat, man! He was like that when I got there - don't get zappy now, man, I didn't do it!" He gulped as the Batman's eyes narrowed.

"Someone killed him," Batman pointed out in a low gravelly growl.

"It wasn't me!" The man's eyes rolled frantically to the sides, searching for help that wasn't there. "Look, I said I took the Bug, didn't I? Just...just hand me over to the pigs-_erk_!" The man wheezed to a halt. A forearm pressing hard on your trachea will do that.

"What was that?" Batman graveled.

"Cops!" the man squeaked. "Police!" The forearm began to ease away. "The boys in blue, the-"

_shift_

"-officers of the law," the young man continued, sweat beginning to trickle down from under the brim of his fedora. His spats swayed feebly in the evening breeze. "The..." He blinked. "What was that?"

The Detective had felt it too, an odd kind of pulse beneath his feet paired with a surprisingly chilly wind across the back of his neck, just above the hem of his trenchcoat. He'd look into it later. What mattered now was this interrogation. "Who killed that man?"

"I'll be on the level with you," he muttered quietly. "The fella that bumped off the guy was a torpedo name of Rex." The insistent pressure on his windpipe indicated that the Detective was not done listening. "He...he...Nickels caught 'im with the coffin varnish! He was gonna rat him out to the bulls, so he iced him! Honest!"

Well, anyone that was willing to turn in a bootlegger would have been an easy target for the gangsters of Gotham. The Detective dragged him to the curb and left him cuffed to a lamp post.

The little criminal sighed as the Detective zipped away in his shiny black car. His hips wriggled against the lamp post as he eased the packet of lock picks out of his pocket. He figured that he had about ten minutes before the Detective found a phone and called in his location, which meant he'd better be quick with the picks so he could go tip off Nickels.

* * *

Batman's cave was surprisingly clean. Visitors - if there had ever been any - would have commented on how difficult it must be to keep all that equipment from getting dirty, particularly since a horde of bats roosted nearby. And if they had seen Alfred, down on his hands and knees, picking at a particularly stubborn bit of melted rubber on the floor, they would have been surprised that Batman was such a hard taskmaster. 

He wasn't. He wouldn't notice if the cave was clean unless it interfered with his work. This was not to say that he wasn't in some way_ responsible_ for the tireless efforts of his butler.

Alfred had found himself in a very unexpected role on that hot night in June so many years ago: fatherhood. Oh, Thomas Wayne would always be Bruce's father - nothing short of a total mindwipe could take _that_ away from Bruce - but a dead man cannot help with homework, or make a sandwich, or cradle a frightened boy in the night when nightmares wake him screaming and crying. Dead men make lousy parents, and so Alfred had stepped in to fill those urgently needed and recently vacated shoes.

He had thrown himself heart and soul into the task of parenting this young little orphan. There were times when he doubted if he'd done a good enough job - well-brought-up young men do not look out the window and proclaim "I shall become a bat!", after all - and ever since the first night that Batman had left to terrorize the underworld, he'd stayed at home and worried. Like most parents, he found it difficult to split the image of young Bruce whimpering over a skinned knee away from the image of adult Bruce coming home with a split lip. There was always the urge to go and scold the other boys for playing rough, even when the other boys were convicted felons.

Work clears the mind. Work calms the soul. At the risk of sounding too Orwellian, work is the ultimate way to keep people from thinking. And so we should not be surprised that while Bruce was out pummeling and being pummeled, Alfred was on his hands and knees distracting himself by scrubbing down every surface in the cave and keeping a careful eye on the tracking monitors. They blipped and beeped as Alfred worked, telling him with every blip that Bruce was out there, safe.

Until they stopped. Alfred sat up and squinted at the monitors. They were dark.

Oh, this was bad. This was _very_ bad. Normally, when parents worry, they have the luxury of probabilities to comfort them: it's unlikely that Billy crashed his car. There's never been a murder in this neighborhood. Jack's never been in a fight in his life, so why would he be en route to the emergency room? Alfred, however, knew all too well that danger lurked in the darkness of the city and that Bruce homed in on danger like a mongoose homing in on a cobra. It was likely that Bruce was laying dead in an alley somewhere. It was almost certain that he was injured.

Alfred abandoned the mess and scurried to the computer, tapping frantically on the keyboard. The tracking devices in the cowl, the car, and the little one that Bruce didn't know about in the heel of his boot weren't responding. The video link in the car was down, too. Oh, this was bad.

"Master Bruce?" Alfred asked, activating the microphone embedded in the wall under the vast monitor. "Master Bruce, are you there?"

Static. He was dead. He'd failed as a guardian. Bruce was dead and how was he ever going to explain this to Thomas in the afterlife? "Yes, I let your son dress up like a giant bat and seek out the most dangerous criminals in the city. Why didn't I try to stop him?...well..." Thomas would kill him. Well, they'd both be dead, but he'd find a way to kill him on top of that, and since he was a doctor, he'd probably be able to un-kill him enough to re-kill him again..."Master _Bruce_! Are you there?" Alfred said urgently into the microphone.

The speakers crackled with static. "I'm here, old friend."

_Thank God_. Relief lent sharpness to a tone that didn't dare let it slip how happy it was. "And where is here, exactly?" he said. "In the middle of a lead-lined tunnel, perhaps?" Well, it might explain the signal failure, and it certainly was possible, particularly since Lex Luthor had been in Gotham before. The man had to have put several lead manufacturers' children through college by now with the rate that he bought the stuff.

"No, I'm down on the corner of Third and Market," Bruce's voice crackled. Alfred rapidly tapped the speaker, trying to fix the static. "I pinched a sap who spilled about Nickels' bootlegging operation. I'm on my way there now."

Alfred's hand slowly tapped on the speaker once more. "There hasn't been a bootlegger in this town for seventy years," he said slowly.

"Tell that to Nickels and his speakeasies."

Alfred blinked at the speaker. "Master Bruce, are you quite certain that everything's all right?"

"Everything's swell, old friend."

Alfred passed a hand over his eyes. Well, it had finally happened. One of them had gone completely mad. He was surprised that it had taken this long. "Master Bruce, there's an urgent matter that requires your attention at home."

"I need to move on Nickels first-"

"An _urgent matter_," Alfred repeated, "and you need to-" He slapped the microphone off. Nothing sparked worry like a sudden disconnect after mentioning an urgent need for someone. That would get Bruce home, and then...well...what did you do when your employer/son went a little crazy?

Call in for reinforcements! Alfred hurried upstairs. Dick was down with a broken foot, sulking in front of the television. But even with a broken foot, he would still be able to knock some sense into Bruce. He hoped.

* * *

In the car, the Detective thumped his little radio speakers. "Alfred? Alfred?" he bellowed. There was no answer. He smacked the dangling fist-sized microphone that hung like a grapefruit from the ceiling of the car. "Alfred!" 

The modified Fleetwood Cadillac screeched around the corner and headed north, zigzagging around a rusty Model T and a bulbous trolley that had bumped together and gotten stuck.

The Detective breathed a sigh of relief when he crossed into the jumble of houses that marked the outskirts of Gotham. Just a few more miles and-

_shift_

-and Batman would see what Alfred wanted and why it was more important than catching those bootleggers...

_Waaaaaaaait a minute_. The Batmobile skidded to a halt. Bootleggers? What had he been _thinking_? And there had been that weird pulse again. It had shaken the car like a baby's rattle.

The car! He'd been driving a Cadillac, he was sure of it, but he didn't_ own_ a Fleetwood. And where had that antique microphone come from?

Anxious fingers played over his face. Well, at least his mask was back..._back_? Oh, _hell_, that little guy had seen him without his mask!...and how had _that_ happened? He hadn't taken it off, he was sure of it, and it couldn't have just disappeared!

This was accelerating right past Weird into Highly Disturbing. Alfred could wait a minute. Batman threw the car into reverse and backed into the city-

_shift_

-and tapped the antique mic hanging beside him in wonderment. Where had this old microphone come from?...why did he think it was old? It was new, built in 1931 at the cutting edge of technology. He pushed his black fedora back and scratched his forehead. Well, maybe Alfred would be able to - Alfred! What was he doing, sitting in the middle of the road when Alfred needed him? He gunned the motor and raced forward again.

_shift_

The car squealed to a halt. He was leaving more tire marks on the road than a kid with new brakes on his bike. The car had changed again, back to that Cadillac! His cowl had turned into a normal hat! And his thoughts had changed, too, something was making him really _believe_ that he was in the thirties.

He slid the top of the car open and swung himself out. The lights of the city glimmered in the distance...but now Batman could see that the lights were too few, too far apart, and too dim to be modern. Somehow Gotham of the thirties had been neatly transplanted into today.

But no, that wasn't right either, because he'd started the night with trailing that gang through the alleyways...and that boy with the afro clearly didn't belong to the thirties. So Gotham of the 1970s was there too, somewhere...

Batman climbed back into the car and roared toward the manor. All other things being equal, the simplest solution is the best, according to William of Occam. (William had obviously never been to Gotham.) In this case, the simplest solution was that one of the rogues had taken it into their heads to mess with humanity. Again.

He needed to find out who among the rogues' gallery was currently in Arkham. Since Arkham was just inside the city limits, and since they were unlikely to have the internet, computers, or surveillance systems if they'd been thrown back to the thirties, he'd have to pay the Rogues' Gallery a visit in person.

But first, he needed a better disguise. If the Bat-mask disappeared when he was face-to-face with any of the rogues...No, he'd have to go as someone else.

A brief, grim smile flitted across his face. Maybe, just this once, it would actually be safer to fight crime as Bruce Wayne.

(_to be continued_)

* * *

_Author's Note: I know it's confusing. Stay with me, folks. _


	2. There's Always Time for This

This was tricky.

Dick had seen Batman lose his marbles before. There were the good old-fashioned sanity killers: lack of sleep, lack of food, poisons, toxins (thank you, Professor Crane)...and then there were times that the general insanity of Gotham seemed to get under Batman's cowl and throw him off balance for a few days.

_Let's face it_, Dick thought, settling uncomfortably into the big chair in front of the monitors, _you can't be totally sane and decide to dress up like a bat. _And really, was dressing up in a costume to_ commit_ crimes any more insane than dressing up to _stop_ them?

Batman...Bruce...would be home any minute now. Alfred was in the stairwell, readying a syringe full of tranquilizers (just in case, he'd assured Dick, as if the prospect of facing a two-hundred-pound madman who could best any ninja master hands down was a minor concern that ranked just under smudged silverware).

A sudden gust of cold air burst silently over Dick. That would be the door to the outside slamming shut. Dick slowly limped over to the edge of the vast canyon in the floor. The car should be in sight..._now_.

And on cue, Batman roared up the narrow, twisting pathway that led to the interior of the cave, screeching to a halt precisely in the middle of the X that marked his usual parking spot. Dick waited until he'd slid out of the car, and then said as casually as possible "Did you, uh, get the bootleggers?"

Batman gave him one of his patented Dick's-an-idiot looks. "No. Alfred?" he called into the darkness.

"Yes, Master Bruce?" Alfred appeared from the stairwell and glanced at Dick, who shrugged back at him. Bruce seemed fine to him, and he'd acted like the bootlegger thing was some kind of bad joke.

"You said there was an urgent matter?"

"Oh. Yes." Alfred glanced back toward the stairs. "I lost radio contact with you for a while. Is everything all right?"

"No. There's something very peculiar happening in Gotham."

"Does it have anything to do with speakeasies?" Dick offered.

"Yes and no." Batman seated himself in the big chair. "Gotham's being pulled through history. The entire city's in some kind of time bubble. I started the night chasing meth dealers and ended it by catching a rum runner from the thirties. Everything changed - the dealer, the car, the buildings, even my clothes. Even my thoughts." He tapped a few keys on the keyboard and the massive screen of the computer filled with static. The security camera feed from Arkham was down.

"Wait, so Gotham's gone back in time?" Dick hopped over to Batman's side and seated himself next to the keyboard. He'd seen enough weird things in his tenure as Robin to be totally unfazed by the thought of a time-traveling city. "I want to be absolutely clear about this. Are you telling me that in Gotham, _right now_, there are flapper girls? I'll just go get my coat."

"Flapper girls were a product of the 1920's, Master Dick," Alfred interjected.

"Well, the thirties had to have _something_, didn't they?" Dick demanded.

"Prohibition, the Dust Bowl, and Herbert Hoover," Batman answered, pulling off the cowl.

Maybe it wasn't _all_ bad that his foot was broken. "Great. So who's doing it?" Dick called after Bruce, who had disappeared into the little room where Alfred kept the Batsuits.

"I've got to go to Arkham to find out," came the muffled reply. Bruce emerged, adjusting his sweater. "Tomorrow morning."

But Batman didn't go out during the day. "You're not going as Batman?" Dick demanded.

"Yes and no," Bruce shrugged, heading upstairs.

"Yes and no? What does _that_ mean?" Dick protested, limping after him. "You're going as _you_? Then I'm coming too!"

"Don't be ridiculous."

"What's ridiculous? I can help! What if they recognize you?"

"You're injured and you're off duty until further notice." With that, Bruce trotted up the rest of the stairs, leaving a fuming Dick to hobble back down alone. He was so _frustrating_ sometimes!

"It's probably for the best that you stay here, Master Dick," Alfred said as he locked up the Batsuits.

"Not you, too! What's the big deal?"

"From what Master Bruce has said, it seems that everything shifts to its time-appropriate counterpart. Do you really want a modern air-cast on your injured foot suddenly turning into a bit of wood tied with string?"

That was a surprisingly good point. "I guess not," Dick said, swiveling idly in his seat. He brightened. "But just because I can't go with him doesn't mean I can't help!" He clicked the computer into life and began searching for any hint of a clue about what was going on in the city.

* * *

The train that ran from Albany to Gotham had had a two-hour delay at the station for reasons that no one saw fit to pass on to the passengers. Barbara Gordon had tried to call her father to let him know she'd be late getting back, but he hadn't answered his cell phone. Or his work phone. Or his home phone. She hoped he wasn't planning on waiting for her at the train station. 

She'd called him several times once the train got going. There hadn't been an answer. And then, shortly before the train pulled into Gotham, she'd noticed that she had a text message waiting for her. It was from an unknown number, and she knew only one person that would be able to pull _that_ off. Batman.

The message, when she opened it, was like all of his communications: short, to the point, and totally frustrating. The message in its entirety read _Stay home_. She slumped moodily in her seat on the train and scowled at her cell phone. Stay home? She was part of the team, whether he liked it or not, and she'd be _damned_ if she stayed home while they had all the fun -

_shift_

-_Ow_! A chorus of yelps dominoed their way down the train as every woman suddenly discovered herself in a very tight corset under what felt like three hundred pounds of petticoats. The cell phone was now a short, engraved note that read "Stay home" in neat cursive letters.

Miss Gordon folded the note and stowed it in her bag. She wasn't sure why she had the note, and she wasn't sure why she seethed with the need to disobey it, but she also didn't know where else she had intended to go.

* * *

Bruce had Alfred park the car just outside the invisible Time barrier. He was uneasy about facing the rogues unmasked. Oh, he'd done it before, certainly, but there was just something about facing down a horde of people who would love to see him dead, and facing them unarmed, that was giving him the willies. 

He suppressed them. He could and would do this. The main problem was the Time bubble altering his thoughts. He couldn't go to Arkham to look for a culprit when he forgot the crime the moment that he stepped into the bubble!

He braced himself and walked through. He was Bruce Wayne and it was nineteen ninety...no, eighteen-ninety...no! Nineteen ninety-five! He mentally sank his teeth into that thought and held on tight. It was the present made up to look like the past. He could deal with this. It was like standing on top of a runaway horse (something that he'd thankfully only had to do one or two times in his life). If he lost concentration, he'd find himself thrown into the olden days and thrown hard. So...he just wouldn't lose his concentration.

He stepped back across the barrier and climbed back into the car. "Okay, Alfred. Let's go."

Alfred eased the car forward across the barrier. As the front of the car passed through the bubble, it transformed into a rather startled horse. Alfred hit the brakes, and the horse squealed with displeasure as the reins jerked its head back.

"What's the problem?" Bruce asked from the back seat.

"Master Bruce, there appears to be a horse attached to our car," Alfred said, staring at it as it flicked its tail back and forth.

"And?"

"I'm not accustomed to horses."

Well, no, he wouldn't be, would he? Bruce chuckled. "Just keep going, Alfred. You will be in a minute."

"How comforting," Alfred muttered, creeping forward again. The rest of the car shuddered and blipped into a fancy cart.

Bruce gave him a few moments to let the history change exert itself on him. "How are you doing, Alfred?"

"Splendid, sir, why do you ask?" Alfred said, skillfully maneuvering the horse onto the main road leading into town.

Bruce grinned. "No reason."

* * *

He had been prepared for a very old-fashioned asylum. He had not been prepared for _this_. 

A flock of people were clustered outside the doors, chattering excitedly to one another. Women in petticoats clutched the arms of their paramours as they described with delicious horror what lay inside the walls. Lone women with an alarming amount of makeup leered invitingly in his direction as the carriage slowed to a halt. Men with large coats sidled toward him, preparing to offer him any one of a range of untrustworthy items at reasonable prices.

Alfred tended to the horse as Bruce threaded his way through the crowd. They weren't there to visit, surely. Arkham's inmates didn't generally attract many visitors. As he politely dodged a fat woman with a corset that creaked alarmingly as she moved, the door swung open.

"Pennies, folks! Only a penny a piece to see the price of moral indecency and overindulgence! Just a penny apiece, thank you sir, thank _you_ sir-" The man gasped as Bruce appeared next in line. "Mr. Wayne! I never expected to see a gentleman like _you_ here!"

"I'd like to speak with the man in charge," Bruce said casually.

"Right you are, sir, right you are." He kicked a young man on the floor next to him with a metal plate on his shoulder. "Go fetch Dr. Arkham immediately!" The young man lolled to his feet and shuffled down the hallway, returning in a matter of minutes with a smart-looking older man at his heels.

"Mr. Wayne! What can I do for you?" Bruce stepped into the asylum, letting the horde of people brandishing pennies flood past him.

"Good morning, Dr. Arkham."

The doctor bit his lip. "Oh. I'm terribly sorry, but Dr. Arkham is busy with a patient. I'm the associate administrator, Dr. Pierce."

"Well, good morning, Dr. Pierce," Bruce said with a smile. "I'd like to talk to you about donating some money." He could almost see the dollar signs lighting up in the man's eyes. "But first, I'd like to inspect the premises, to see where my money may do the most good."

"Oh, of course, of course," the doctor twittered. "We'll start with the administrative wing - it's ever so drafty in there, you know..." And Pierce tugged Bruce along into the depths of the wing that he really didn't have time to look at. But still, to maintain his cover, he nodded and agreed with the needed repairs as Pierce made sure to show him every single indignity that he personally had to endure - a drafty window, a creaking set of floorboards, a door that didn't latch unless you pressed the knob a certain way...

"But what of the inmates?" Bruce asked at the end of it.

"Them? Oh, well, if you care to see them..." The doctor said, flapping a hand. "Really, they wouldn't notice improvements. Most of them are beyond help."

"I'd still like to see them."

"A true humanitarian," the doctor beamed, "no matter how misguided. Come on, then. We'll start with the Incurables."

Bruce's heart began to thump a little faster. The doctor led him through the twisting passageways down to the main floor, where a viewing gallery had been set up. The passage was full of people, giggling, laughing, and Bruce was startled to note, armed with long sticks. "Do the inmates regularly attack the visitors?" he inquired, pointing at one gentleman with an exceedingly long stick.

The doctor looked a little embarrassed. "No, no, the people just like to get their money's worth. They enjoy...erm...stirring them up a bit, if you take my meaning." At Bruce's dumbfounded look, the doctor hurried on. "I know it's a bit...er...well, frankly, Mr. Wayne, we need the money that they bring in. We made nine hundred and sixty dollars last year from their entrance fees, and surely a man like you can appreciate that kind of money."

Nine hundred and sixty dollars at a penny per person meant that ninety-six thousand people had come here last year to poke the Joker with a stick. He was almost amused.

Bruce ran his eye over the row of prisoners chained to the wall. Most of them were screaming obscenities at the visitors or angrily carrying on debates with open air. A lone, slim figure leaned against the huge grey stones, glaring malevolently at anyone who dared to approach him. The chain from his iron collar, attached at the wall near his ankles, jingled as he shifted away from his drooling neighbor.

Bruce sauntered up to him. Before he could say anything, though, that glowering gaze was trained on him. "Come to gape at the lunatics?" Jonathan Crane asked icily. "That's hardly done among men of your stature."

"Actually, I'm here on business," Bruce said casually.

"What business could you possibly have _here_?"

As Bruce was about to reply, the woman chained to Crane's left shrieked "The demon, the demon!" and flung herself at Crane, clutching him around the waist and sobbing into his ragged shirt.

He tried to shove her away, but she stubbornly clung to him and wailed even louder. With a look of long-suffering patience on his face, Crane leaned down and muttered something into her ear. She glanced fearfully up at him and he nodded, solemn as a priest.

She screamed with renewed terror and threw herself backward, scraping at her skin with her fingernails. Crane settled back into his lounging pose, watching her shriek with a little grin of satisfaction on his face.

But Bruce had already begun to move on. It was difficult to tell the inmates from the visitors - they mixed freely in the halls and everyone was talking and laughing exuberantly over the occasional scream of terror or howl of anger. The clanking of chains rattled in a constant counterpoint to the cacophony of voices.

Ah, _that_ looked like a door that would lead to the Rogues' Gallery - it was the one with the most bars and ironwork soldered into place. The doctor trailing behind Bruce cleared his throat. "I really would advise that you not go down that corridor - it can be rather dangerous."

Bruce watched a lone woman in a pale green dress disappear through the door. "If that young lady can go in, then so can I." He shoved his way through the jostling crowd and went in.

It was quieter here, though not by much. Bruce walked slowly down the little hallway, peering into every room as he passed. Edward Nygma was busy scraping a question mark into the wall using a sharp edge on his manacles. Harvey Dent sprawled on a well-worn cot and sneered at the doctor as he scurried past.

The next room contained a knot of men clustered around something, jabbing it with their sticks and chuckling to each other in rough voices. Bruce cleared his throat. "Excuse me, gentlemen," he said quietly. The cluster of men parted to reveal Pamela Isley curled on the floor, her green skin mottled with bruises. "Leave the girl alone."

"We paid our pennies," one of them said mutinously.

As Batman, he had a vast selection of weapons that he could have used on them. As Bruce Wayne, he had only one. Bruce pulled a handful of change out of his pocket. "Would you like them back?"

The men snatched the change like starving chickens attacking a sack of corn and fled. "Miss?" Bruce asked. Pamela didn't respond. Being attacked with dead bits of her precious babies had probably been too much for her to handle.

"That must have been a whole dollar," the doctor muttered to himself, watching the pack of men escaping with their loot. "A whole dollar!"

Bruce sighed and left Ivy curled up on the floor. He could help her more by fixing this time mess than by doing anything else. At least in their proper time, the staff cared a little bit about the well-being of their patients.

"For I love thee so sincerely, none could ever love again..." He followed the sound of singing down the hallway, where he found Harleen Quinzell perched upside-down on a hard wooden bench. She seemed not to realize that the heavy iron chain attached to her ankle was slapping her in the face as she air-danced along to her song. "Fondly my young heart receiv'd him, which was doomed to love but one. He sighed - he vowed - and I believed him, he was false - and I undone."

"I hate that song," someone called from the end of the hall.

Harley obligingly switched tunes mid-note. "Life's a toil, and love's a trouble, beauty will fade and riches will flee, wages will dwindle and prices will double, nothing is as I would wish it to be!"

"Better," the voice grudgingly complimented. Harley beamed and wiggled her shoulders happily as Bruce passed her and approached the source of the voice.

The Joker was lounging in a little metal cage at the end of the hall, feet crossed on the bars that held him inside. He was cooing gentle entreaties at the girl Bruce had followed inside. She stood just a few feet from the cage, obviously uncertain about going further. "Come here, darling, I just want to talk," he said coaxingly.

"Don't," Pierce advised the girl in an abrupt voice. "He's violent."

"Me?" the Joker said, holding a shocked hand to his chest. "Violent? I would _never_ harm such a pretty young thing..."

"He's incorrigible," the doctor informed Bruce with a scowl on his face. The Joker winked at the girl and beckoned her closer with a sly jerk of his head. "I said don't!"

But it was too late. The girl had crept within arm's reach of the Joker. His pale hand lashed out between the bars and dragged her up by the hand. Wrenching her arm through the bars, he drew her thin little hand to his mouth.

And then, with a soft, gentlemanly kiss on her ring finger, he let her go. She backed away, twisting her hands together, eyes wide with fear. The Joker, chuckling, favored her with another wink.

"Stupid girl," the doctor muttered. "Have you seen everything you wished to see, sir?"

"Yes," Bruce said, locking eyes with the Joker for a brief moment. "Yes, I have."

"Then allow me to escort you back to the front."

Bruce mentally ran down the list of rogues. Everyone was there, with the glaring omission of two names: Jervis Tetch and Temple Fugate. And since Lewis Carroll wasn't due to write Alice in Wonderland for another fifty years, it was unlikely that he'd find Jervis inside.

Of course it was Fugate who had constructed the time bubble. Who else in this town would have a deep, abiding interest in controlling what time everyone lived in? Well, the Joker would probably think it was funny to see everyone all gussied up in the hottest trends of 1814, but not if it meant he had to be crammed into a little cage and poked with a variety of blunt objects.

Bruce hoisted himself into the back of the carriage. At least he finally had some idea about what was going on. He slid forward, trying to get comfortable on the hard little bench -

_shift_

- and was promptly hurled backward in his seat as the hovercar zipped merrily through the air. "Alfred?" Bruce called, prying himself off of the back windshield.

"Seatbelts were invented for a reason, Master Bruce," Alfred reminded him in calm tones as they did a barrel roll around a slower hovercar. Bruce finally fumbled the advanced harness into some sort of order as they ducked under a bridge.

A very unpleasant thought made its way into the forefront of Bruce's mind. What if they were fifty feet above the ground when they zipped through the bubble? "Alfred, land," he said hurriedly.

"Master Bruce, I am in full control of this vehicle."

"Alfred, go _lower_." The edge of Gotham was in sight now and they were going very, very fast indeed. Seatbelts would not help in a vertical crash landing. "Alfred, go lower _right now_!"

Alfred sighed and aimed the hovercar toward the ground. "Really, Master Bruce, I'd imagine that with _your_ night job you'd enjoy a normal car ride for once."

They were still ten feet above the ground. Bruce closed his eyes and braced himself.

_shift_

"Have you discovered who's behind the time problem yet?" Alfred asked.

Bruce opened his eyes. They were on the ground. They hadn't crashed in a fiery spiral of death. That was almost reassuring. "Yes, I did," he said in answer to Alfred's question. Now all he had to do was _find_ him.

(_to be continued_)

* * *

_Author's Note: I apologize for the late posting. I had to stop for research after every two sentences, so this chapter took far longer than I anticipated to write. (But I still squeaked in under the deadline!)_

_Speaking of research, Arkham is based on Bedlam (Bethlem Royal Hospital in England) circa 1815. Everything that happened in this Arkham - the visitors with sticks, the chains, the licensed beggars (the young man with the metal plate on his arm), the young ladies of negotiable virtue hoping to pick up customers - really happened in Bedlam. It almost makes modern-day institutions seem homey, doesn't it?_

_Harley's first song - 'Crazy Jane' - was written by Matthew Gregory Lewis. I don't know the author of the second, but it's called 'Life's a Toil'._


	3. Time's Up

Wikipedia is a web of interest and intrigue that can snare unwary passersby and drag them without their permission into a vortex of fascinating research. Someone might start out by looking up dinosaurs and end on a page describing how paperclips are made. Six hours later. With no memory of how they got there.

Or, if you happen to be a sidekick on a quest for clues, you might start out researching Time and wind up staring indignantly at your own Wikipedia page, most of which has been taken over by rather insulting theories.

_I didn't name myself after a stupid little songbird! It's Robin as in Robin _Hood_, guys. Check the costume. Are there feathers? Do I wear a beak? No. _He slumped back in the big chair and skimmed the rest of the page, absently nibbling a piece of pepperoni off of his slice of pizza. No, he wasn't Batman's son. Yes, he'd worn elf shoes, but that was a long time ago! A little picture of him in the early years beamed out at the world from the enormous monitor. Had he really been that young when he started? Had he really worn those tiny green speedos? How had any of Gotham's villains managed to face him without laughing themselves sick?

A throat was cleared behind him. Dick, acting purely on instinct, leapt to his feet and whirled to face the unknown threat. Well, that was the plan, anyway. Instinct had failed to take into account Dick's broken foot and the piece of melty pizza in his hand. His air-casted foot with its smooth plastic sole slid right out from under him and slammed into the leg of the chair. He screeched with pain and flung out his hands for balance, sending the pizza in a perfect curve across the room to connect with a muted _splat_ on the trophy case containing a shredded Man-Bat labcoat.

Bruce regarded him as he stood there, panting, gingerly resting his injured foot on the ground. "Am I interrupting something?" he asked, one eyebrow raised.

"No, I just...I...you wouldn't _believe_ some of the stuff they're saying about me. Us," he amended hurriedly.

"We have more important things to worry about," Bruce reminded him.

"Right, right," Dick muttered, hurriedly closing the Wikipedia window. "I did find some stuff about the time skips."

"Show me."

* * *

Bruce leaned on the back of the chair as Dick tapped rapidly on the keyboard. "It's the raw news feed from channel 27." The monitor screen filled with the image of a beaming scientist standing in front of an odd-looking machine. 

Bruce sighed. It was always scientists and weird machines. Why couldn't it have been something easy, like a mass hallucination?

The white-haired man gestured proudly at his machine. "After years of painstaking research, I've finally been able to produce a machine that will take us back and forth through time without disturbing the time-space continuum."

The reporters, none of whom really cared about the time-space continuum as long as they got their stories, scribbled his words down dutifully. "What does it do?" one of them called out.

"It can transport us to other eras," the scientist beamed.

"Why? What's it good for?" one of the reporters asked from somewhere behind the camera.

The scientist stared at him with a look of confusion on his face. Bruce suspected that, like all scientists, the whole reason to build it was to build it. Finding a _use_ for crazy machines always seemed to come second in the scientific community. "It's...educational," he finally muttered. "History lectures will be a thing of the past."

The reporters chuckled. The scientist didn't. "If you'll allow me to demonstrate," he said, turning to a little keypad set into the side of the machine, "I shall now take us back to-"

There was an enormous clattering noise paired with the sound of frantically running feet. "Sorry, sorry," a young man said as he panted to a halt in front of the scientist. "Sorry, Dr. Bertram, my alarm clock didn't go off."

Bertram scowled down at the boy. "Allow me to introduce my assistant," he said icily. "Jacob Forester."

"Hey!" Jacob protested, returning Bertram's glare. "I'm not your _assistant_! We worked together on this thing!"

"I worked for thirty-five years on the mechanics of this project," Bertram said. "_You_ showed up six months ago and said a few words."

"I did more than that!" Jacob snapped. "Magic's harder than it looks, Bertram!"

_And_ magic, Bruce thought, rubbing his eyes. A scientist with a weird machine _and_ magic. Could it get any worse?

Bertram favored Jacob with a grim smile. "Apparently so, given that certain aspects of _your_ side of things still isn't functioning correctly."

_Ah. It _is_ worse. _It was bad enough dealing with crazy machines without worrying whether they'd suddenly go spastic from bad programming.

"Things on _my_ side are doing fine! _You're_ the one that made me build half your machinery with lousy instructions and-"

A camera flashing over the two irate inventors reminded them that they were not alone. "We'll discuss this later," Bertram promised in a low growl. "If I may continue the demonstration that was so rudely interrupted," he said, ignoring Jacob's look of death aimed in his direction, "I will now take us back to 1983." He finished tapping in the sequence and triumphantly pressed a green button.

_shift_

Bertram looked generally unchanged. Science and fashion had never really gone together, and lab coats had remained the same for years. Jacob, however, had been wearing normal, everyday clothing, which had shifted into a Hypercolor T-shirt and skintight, acid-washed blue jeans.

The biggest change in the room was the machine itself, which had devolved into an absolutely enormous beige monstrosity that took up nearly all the space in the room.

Bertram wheeled on Jacob and snarled "I thought you said you _fixed_ that! The machine is not supposed to shift with us!"

"Don't look at me," he protested. "It was probably your stupid processor that's on the blink again!"

A reporter cleared her throat. "This is, um, certainly interesting," she said, stepping forward so everyone could see her new clothes, "But how is it any more educational than looking at pictures?"

Bertram gave her his best attempt at a smile. "If you'll step into that room over there, you'll soon find out," he said. "This room is guarded against the full effects of the machine."

The reporter shrugged and stepped into the indicated room, waving to everyone from behind the huge plexiglass window that formed the wall between the rooms. "What now?"

"Can you tell me what the last thing you watched on the television was?"

"Oh, um...Oh, yeah, it was that new show, _Scarecrow and Mrs. King_. Spies are so _bad,_ you know? Awesome."

"Of course," Bertram said uncertainly. "You can come back in, now."

The reporter shrugged and came back in. "Oh!" She twisted around to gape at the room, then back at the machine. "It was like I was really in the eighties! I couldn't remember anything past 1983!"

Dick paused the feed. "That's basically it. There's another few minutes of her gushing about how neat the machine is, and then everyone has a turn in the plexiglass room."

"Where's the machine now?"

Dick shrugged. "Well, if they've still got it in the same lab, it's over on Naylor Avenue."

* * *

The problem with magic is that it is dumb. If you want a spell to turn someone's nose purple, well, that's easy. But the more commands and features you add in to the spell, the more complicated the instructions have to be. You have to specify every little detail or what you end up getting is magical havoc. 

Curiously enough, anyone who owns a PC can tell you that technology is dumb for exactly the same reason. Of course, technological havoc can be a little less dangerous, depending upon which system is currently going kerflooey, but havoc is havoc nonetheless.

Trying to combine science and magic is like trying to combine sodium with water. If you're careless, what you get is a loud noise or two as your carefully-set-up equipment jerks and smokes into a shuddering ruin. (And that's if you're _lucky_.)

If you're very, very careful, though, and if you've taken care to avoid any possible problems, and if you've got specialists standing by to assist you...well, then _maybe_ you'll get something that works. It might do something totally different than you anticipated, but it will do _something_, and hopefully that something won't be too destructive.

Batman knew all this, and he was busy making contingency plans as he crept into the lab via the surprisingly strong ventilation system. The three men inside the lab - Dr. Bertram, Jacob Forester, and Temple Fugate - didn't notice him as he carefully began detaching the vent grating.

He was not exactly happy with the situation. On his way over, the city had suffered no less than four time shifts, and every time he'd expected his mask to disappear. It hadn't - yet - but he had rubbed his face over with charcoal in case it did. Some kind of black mask was better than nothing, and charcoal couldn't really devolve.

It was at times like this that he really envied most of the other members of the Justice League. _They_ didn't have to wear masks._They_ waltzed around barefaced and, in some cases, bare-legged and bare-armed and why on earth would _anyone_ choose to fight crime in a strapless leotard when common decency dictated that no skin above the knees should be shown-

No! No, he was losing himself in this era of Time. He was still Bruce Wayne and it was still 1995, no matter what he was wearing or what the building looked like. He redoubled his efforts with the screws.

Below him, Fugate, with a scowl of annoyance on his face, sat primly in a hard wooden chair and toyed with an hourglass. "How long do you anticipate _this_ round of repairs to take?" he asked. "We're on a schedule, you know."

"I'm sorry, Mr. Fugate, but the schedule's totally screwed," a voice came from inside the machinery. Batman traced it to where a pair of legs were dangling from a gap in the solid iron case of the machine. "I did my best, but it wasn't meant to work this hard and it keeps breaking!"

"Then I advise that you fix it," Fugate said menacingly.

"I'm_ trying_! Half the time it's too backward for me to figure out what should go where, and half the time it's so far advanced that I've never even heard of the components! I've only got an hour here and there where I can actually understand it, and by the time I get the new parts in, it's switched again and more stuff breaks!" The owner of the legs clanked something hard in the web of machinery. The objects in the room rippled and changed. Some things evolved into highly futuristic, sweeping chrome representations of themselves. Some things, like the machine in the middle of the room, devolved into something out of a steampunk wonderland.

Batman froze in place, assessing the changes in his costume. Mask? Yes, in fact quite a bit _more_ mask than he was used to. No skin at all was exposed. The cape was gone, but he felt little ridges in the back that indicated a set of pop-out glider wings. And the belt had all the old familiar things, even if they were a little oddly shaped. He was still Batman. It would do.

Fugate sighed and placed the hourglass neatly on the floor. "Do you require a bit more persuasion?" he asked, withdrawing a rather ominous-looking pointed rod from his pocket.

The voice sighed. "Mr. Fugate, you can threaten me all you like." The legs wriggled around and slowly drew the rest of Jacob Forester out into the open. A grease spot was splotched across the side of one cheek and a vicious burn marred the other underneath a screen of stubble. It looked like the boy had been running on coffee instead of sleep for the past week. "You can kill me if you want, but you'll never get this working without me. Go on, shock me with that thing all the way up to high. Death might be better than messing with this anymore."

A fountain of blue sparks reflected in his glasses. "If you insist."

"Hey, whoa, no!" Jacob protested, backing away. "I didn't mean it! I was kidding!"

"Please put that thing away," Dr. Bertram's tired voice requested in tones that reeked of carefully maintained patience. "You and I both know perfectly well that he's right. Without his input, this machine will merely continue to shift Gotham through time forever with no guidance."

Fugate sighed and stowed his device away. "It seems to me that the two of you are conspiring to put this project behind schedule."

"Listen, you're asking me to do the impossible, okay?" the young man grumbled. "I'm not what's-her-face with the great legs. Her side of the family got all the _real_ talent. What you're doing is basically asking New Hope Luke Skywalker to face down Return of the Jedi Vader." He sighed at Fugate's blank stare of incomprehension. "It's like Bart Simpson compared to Lisa...Jan Brady compared to Marcia?...forget it," he muttered. "Some of us can't just say what we want backwards and have it work. Some of us just aren't that good."

"I suggest that you become that good shortly," Temple said icily as he resumed his seat. "_Some of us_ have schedules to keep."

_And some of us have schedules to ruin_. Batman whipped the detached vent cover through the air at Fugate. It smacked into his forehead with a flat metallic _whang_ as the flimsy metal curved around his skull.

Fugate managed to uncover his face just in time to see Batman's fist on a collision course with his nose. _Crunch_. The chair tipped over backward, sending Fugate head-over-heels into a metal rack piled high with tools. The shelves obligingly spat their contents all over him with a sound reminiscent of a tin-plated elephant falling down a fire escape.

Bleeding, bruised, and generally battered, Fugate glared up at the Batman. The waffle-print that the vent cover had left on his skin was starting to puff up into little tiny ridges on his forehead. "You...are _late_," he pronounced severely. He jabbed a hand into his coat pocket, hoping to extract his weapon.

Batman snapped out an arm to stop him. A red-and-black batarang dropped neatly into his hand, seemingly out of nowhere, and sped into the weapon, snapping it cleanly in two. A vicious spray of blue sparks exploded from the broken device. When they cleared, Fugate was sprawled limply in the wreckage. Batman cuffed him to a handy exposed pipe and pressed a pair of fingers to his neck. Yes, he had a pulse. That would do for now.

"Batman?" Jacob Forester scrambled to his feet. "Wow, Batman! That was so_ cool _the way you hit him with the thing and-"

"How do you turn this machine off?" Batman interrupted, stalking over to the clanking iron-and-wood oblong.

"Oh. Uh, well, that's the one thing we can't do."

Batman glared at him. "Why not?"

Jacob flushed with embarrassment. "Look, he made us wire it directly into the power grid, first of all, and he had this, I don't know, this amplifier thing that he added to it, and...and a bunch more stuff that I can't even remember, but I can't just go back and undo it. Y'know what happens when the Ghostbusters cross the streams?"

Batman gave him a look that clearly read _Why would I _want_ t_o_ know that_?

"It's...it would be bad, okay? Very bad. World-ending bad." Jacob waved his arms in an attempt to get across how totally, life-exterminatingly, wholly double-plus ungood it would be to even _think_ about turning it off.

Dr. Bertram cleared his throat. "If you are _quite_ finished babbling, Forester, you can turn the device off at any time."

"_What_?" Jacob sputtered. "You said...you told _him_ that...you said we'd be utterly doomed!"

"Did you honestly think I'd tell that _villain_ the _truth_?" Bertram sneered. "Besides, when does a person in serious fear of their life use the phrase _utterly doomed_?"

"You total _ass_," Jacob snarled. "You let me work like hell on that _thing_ and get shocked how many times - _how many times_ - and you let me freak out every time I nudged the power supply thinking I was going to kill us all...you _bastard_!"

"Enough," Batman growled. "Turn it off. Now."

"Oh, I'll turn it off, all right," Jacob snapped. He pointed a finger at the machine and rattled off a series of garbled syllables that sounded vaguely like a stream of Spanish epithets.

The machine quivered, rocking back and forth on its supports like a small child in need of a bathroom. Then, as Jacob scowled at it, it turned into a pile of roasted chicken legs.

"What did you _do_?" Bertram shouted, rising to his feet.

_shift_

Batman, once more in his customary outfit, snagged Bertram as he went for Forester. "Stop it," he warned.

"He _ruined_ my equipment-"

"You ruined my _life_!" Jacob howled back. "Six months I worked with you, six months of condescension and insults and 'science is _so_ much better than magic' and I wish I could hate you to_ death_!"

Batman held up a hand, cutting off Jacob's rant. "Tell me something," Batman growled, leaning in close to Bertram. "If you could have turned off that machine at any time...why didn't you just turn it off in the first place?"

Bertram yanked on his labcoat. "That man had an electrical device, I have a pacemaker, and I couldn't exactly turn it off from beyond the grave, now could I? Why aren't you asking _him_ why he didn't just wave his hands and stop that man?"

"Because it's fairly obvious when I do a spell, _Bertram_, and if he'd interrupted me it could have done anything! It might have even rebounded on you!" He smiled an evil little smile. "Maybe we could get Batman to let him go and I could try again."

Batman detached Fugate from the wall and slung him over his shoulder, ignoring the full-scale verbal brawl going on behind him. Bickering inventors were not his concern. He pulled open the nearest window and shot a grapnel into a nearby building, swinging them gently to the ground. Maybe he'd get lucky and find out where Jervis Tetch had weaseled himself away. It would be nice to have all the crazies safely tucked away in Arkham...

An airborne chicken leg nearly missed whacking him in the head. He looked up and saw the two inventors flailing wildly at one another amidst the wreckage of the laboratory. With a sigh, he stuffed Fugate into the Batmobile and shot a new grapnel line upward. Some crazies, unfortunately, he _couldn't_ take to Arkham.

* * *

_Author's Note: How could I bring magic into this story without referencing Little Miss Mindwipe herself, Zatanna Zatara? Most of the other references are blatantly obvious, except "I wish I could hate you to death" which is from the boys at Penny Arcade. (Oh, and 'double-plus ungood' is a 1984 thing, but you knew that already, right?) _

_Also, take a look at Robin's Wikipedia page. Go on, I'll wait. See that bit at the bottom, the one that makes the Superdickery webmaster make frowny faces? Yeah. That doesn't exist in Gotham, because not a single person in that entire city would have the guts to put that on a website where Batsy might see it. (Well, except maybe the Joker...he's the exception to every rule, isn't he?) _

_I have two stories half-finished at the moment, so I'm going to be posting them both at once - one on Mondays, one on Thursdays. So stay tuned for "Homesick" and "Origins" coming to a webpage near you, same Bat-time, same Bat-channel!_


End file.
